Mobile Suit Gundam Divinity
by Maileesaeya
Summary: Kira Yamato has always done his best to help others, while Makoto Arata has been content living a grand lie... until the fires of war threaten to consume them and all they hold dear, driving them to the battlefield to fight for their very survival. But their victory hinges on the two discovering just what their connection is to Project Divinity... Part I of the New Divinity Saga.
1. The Beginning…

**Merry Christmas everyone! Or at least, that's what this was intended to be, but FF account pages were down when I finished this and didn't come back up until a little while ago, so I wasn't able to post it. Rather infuriating, really.**

**Won't talk much here, but I really hope you enjoy this! I've been wanting to get a strong Divinity Saga reboot going, and this is it, I'm sure of that.**

**"Note that dialogue written with an underline like this is being spoken in a different language, which will be Japanese unless stated otherwise."**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED or any associated characters or mecha. I claim ownership of all Original Characters and Original Mecha in this story at this time.**

* * *

"_There is no creature more arrogant than man. This creature, blessed with wisdom, strength and resourcefulness, was not satisfied with what it had. And so, in its arrogance, man sought to become something more; it sought to become God. We succeeded. And that was how we learned that there is no creature more pathetic and miserable than God. We've walked the road to hell… and we may have dragged the whole world down with us."_

* * *

First Phase: The Beginning…

January 25th, Cosmic Era 71

* * *

Heliopolis, Colony of the Orb Union, Lagrange Point 3

It could've been worse.

Those were the words Kira Yamato continually chanted to himself as he tried to make a dent in the stupidly large workload his college engineering professor had given him. It could always have been worse—he could've been working directly for Morgenroete, like that girl who'd recently moved to Heliopolis and had gone around introducing herself to semi-random people before rushing off to her job.

Sure, he was a brilliant student who could get through large workloads in short order, always ahead of the rest of his class, so it would be understandable that he might be given some additional stuff, especially since the technical college he attended was attached to Morgenroete and the odd little projects of the students got examined by them, and sometimes even handed jobs down to the students, often reimbursing some of their tuition for the semester.

But this was _ridiculous_. He'd been working on this since the start of the semester and he was still going at it, in part because the professor kept piling more and more on him.

"Ah, there you are."

Kira looked up at the sound of the voice and saw Sora and Ayane Honda standing next to the gazebo where Kira had been working.

Sora was one of Kira's classmates in Professor Kato's engineering course at the college; he was sixteen, five foot five and had a slight frame and slender features that made him look almost effeminate. He had short dark brown hair and dark eyes, and was wearing a loose-fitting black t-shirt and blue jeans, a music player held idly in his hand.

Ayane was Sora's sister and a year older than him; she was a bit taller at five foot seven, had soft facial features remarkably similar to her brother's and a slight frame with small breasts and wide hips. Unlike Sora, though, she had long flowing blue hair and intense red eyes; she was wearing a white t-shirt and blue denim skirt that fell halfway to her knees.

Kira himself was only fifteen years old, a few months from turning sixteen; much like Sora, he was five foot five and had a very slight frame and slender facial features, though his mostly had the effect of making him look even younger than he really was. He had short messy brown hair and dark violet eyes, and was wearing a black long-sleeve shirt and white pants, with a robotic green bird sitting on his shoulder idly chirping.

Kira and Sora were friends, and Kira could probably safely say the same of Ayane. However, at this particular moment, he really, _really_ wished Sora hadn't found him.

"Please, please, _please_ tell me you're just here to play a practical joke," said Kira.

"Sorry," said Sora with a slight shift of his shoulders. "The Professor wanted me to find you. Figure he's probably got more work for you."

Kira groaned.

"I'm still working on the stuff he dumped on me yesterday."

"Isn't there still some stuff from the start of the semester as well?" asked Ayane with a faint tilt of her head. Kira nodded weakly.

"Sorry," said Sora again, stepping into the gazebo and leaning on the table next to Kira's laptop. "Really, I am, but there's not a whole lot I can do. Sai's been trying to take some of the workload on himself, but…"

"Yeah… yeah, I know," muttered Kira. "I'm really tempted to just throw it all out though."

"With a workload like that, I don't blame you," said Ayane. She shifted slightly as her ears caught something coming from Kira's laptop. "Are you watching the news?"

"Well, I had a window pulled up," he said, selecting the window and expanding it to full-size as Ayane squeezed into the gazebo next to Sora to take a look.

"_I'm within seven miles of Kaohsiung,_" said the reporter, "_where the sounds of fierce combat continue to echo._" In the background, a pair of ZAFT mobile suits could be seen.

"Taiwan, huh…" muttered Sora softly.

"How old do you think the report is?" asked Ayane. "If it's more than a few days, they may have already taken over Kaohsiung."

"That's not too far from the Homeland, is it?" Sora glanced at Kira and Ayane. "Will Orb be okay?"

"Well, it's not like Kaohsiung is any closer than Carpentaria or Panama are," said Ayane, straightening up as Kira hibernated the laptop, "so I don't think there's really any more danger than there was before. Besides, I don't know about you two, but I'm not gonna complain if East Asia is too busy dealing with this to complain about Orb's refusal to revoke its neutrality."

"Hmmm," murmured Kira as he started to pack up his laptop. "I never figured out what East Asia's problem with Orb was."

"Who knows?" said Sora.

"Anyways, we should get going," said Ayane, "the sooner Kira knows what he's working on, the sooner he can try to get it finished."

* * *

Morgenroete Inc. Heliopolis Branch Warehouse 13

"Now then, what do we have here?" questioned Makoto Arata as she examined the computer core of one of the prototype mobile suits Morgenroete had rolled out of the factory a few days ago and had her putting some finished touches on.

She wasn't a Morgenroete employee, nor was she a military officer despite some military training. She also wasn't an engineer of any stripe—actually, she was an entertainer, sort of, but that was beside the point right now.

The point was that she was in the warehouse, examining a mobile suit computer core, and it had something the others did not: a curious little black cube, hooked into the mainframe. It looked like it had been built directly in, but there was evidence that it was designed to be removed, which was even more curious given that this was an area of the war machine few people were likely to ever be in except for cleaning purposes.

Ordinarily, she might've brushed this off, but…

"So why does my Angelus have the odd computer system?" she muttered to herself—this particularly machine had been modeled after a little mobile suit model she'd built herself as a hobby some eight months ago. The reason it had been modeled after that toy was a long story as well, tied directly into why she was here, but she didn't let herself think about that, instead quickly clambering back out of the computer core, her inspection complete and deciding not to worry too much about the curiosity.

After closing the access to the core, Makoto climbed out of the cockpit, settling her feet on the body of the machine as she shook her hair slightly before flipping a bit of it back over her shoulder.

Makoto was fifteen years old and stood five foot eight inches, had soft blue eyes, braided dirty blonde hair that fell to her hips, supple but strong arms, long smooth legs and a formidable figure with wide hips, thin waist and a considerable bust. She was dressed in a tight-fitting sleeveless black shirt and a pleated white miniskirt that showed just a bit of skin on her thighs between the skirt and her thigh-length white socks.

The blonde glanced around the warehouse for a moment until she spotted Murrue Ramius over by the factory entrance and started walking that way.

Murrue was in overall charge of the warehouse and its contents at the moment. She was twenty-eight years old, five foot seven inches tall, with shoulder-blade length dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and an absolutely monstrous figure—huge breasts, curved hips and a relatively tiny waist. She was wearing the orange outfit of a Morgenroete factory worker, and seemed to fit in right in with everyone around her.

It was all a ruse though—Makoto knew for a fact that, despite her very civilian appearance and hair far longer than any military regulation would ever allow, Murrue was actually an officer in the Atlantic Federation Space Forces.

Morgenroete was based out of Orb and owned by Orb Noble Houses… but these new mobile weapons they'd developed weren't built for Orb. Instead, they'd been built for the Atlantic Federation, a secret joint project during the course of which Morgenroete had been secretly developing Orb weapons from that data on the side.

Murrue knew that Makoto knew the truth about these machines—but she didn't know everything about Makoto, most especially why a civilian with no engineering experience would be sent by Morgenroete to oversee the final stages.

"Ramius-chūi, I've finished the inspection," said Makoto as she reached Murrue. The older brunette turned to face the teen and gave a small nod.

"Yes, thank you," she said, "I trust there were no issues?" Makoto shrugged.

"None that I was able to find," she said; the Earth Forces soldiers didn't know about her lack of engineering experience, and she'd managed to keep it that way rather smoothly so far.

"Was there anything else?" asked Murrue.

"Actually, yes; I was wondering how much longer it would be before we can get these things off of Heliopolis." Makoto glanced back at the machines. "We're good at keeping secrets, but ZAFT has good intelligence sources. It's only a matter of time before they find out about this and decide to act."

"We're transferring them today," said Murrue, "within the hour in fact. The _Archangel_ will be launching within twenty-four hours of the transfer."

"Good," said Makoto with a slight nod, "having them here is starting to make me nervous. I've been feeling kind of off for the last few hours, so that hasn't helped either."

"Well, there shouldn't be anything more you need to worry about," said Murrue with a kind smile. "Why don't you go relax while we wrap things up here?"

"Yeah, maybe I will," said Makoto, turning and walking away. She liked Murrue, but she couldn't forget that the older woman was with the Atlantic Federation, and things were tense between Orb and the Alliance, more so than the tension between Orb and ZAFT, at any rate.

As she walked away, Makoto reached a hand into her skirt pocket and clasped it around the flash drive within, feeling a bit reassured to feel it still there.

The new mobile weapons were using incomplete and highly experimental operating systems intended to allow Naturals—ordinary unmodified humans as opposed to the genetically-enhanced Coordinators that made up most of ZAFT's mobile forces—to pilot the incredibly complex mobile suits.

The drive in Makoto's pocket, though, contained a complete and fully functional OS, copied from a ZGMF-1017 GINN in the Orb Self-Defense Force and modified to have greater hardware flexibility, just in case she needed to seize one of the prototype weapons for her own protection and as a potential tool to steal one of the Atlantic Federation weapons for Orb to secretly hold onto.

Given the feeling in her chest that something huge was going to happen soon, having it on hand was all the more reassuring.

* * *

Earth Forces _Marseille III_-class Transport Ship _Chartres_, Heliopolis Dock

"Are you sure about remaining on station Lieutenant?" asked Commander Hawthorn, the CO of the _Chartres_. The man he was speaking to turned towards him and shook his head slightly.

He was twenty-seven years old, stood six feet tall with a slightly thin frame, had wild blond hair, handsome features and intense blue eyes. He was wearing the white uniform of an Earth Forces officer.

His name was Mu La Flaga, an ace pilot and lieutenant in the Atlantic Federation Space Forces, nicknamed Hawk of Endymion for his exploits in a battle over the Endymion crater back when it was an Earth Forces lunar base.

"I'm sure," said Mu, staring out the viewport at the exit from the Heliopolis harbor. "Until everything's wrapped up inside or those ZAFT ships wander off, I'm not gonna let my guard down."

"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid?" questioned Hawthorn. "ZAFT won't risk an international incident with Orb by attacking within Heliopolis Airspace."

"Maybe… just call it a gut feeling though, and I've learned to trust that." Mu turned to Hawthorn with a thin smile. "Besides, you know what they say: better safe than sorry."

Hawthorn chuckled. "Fair enough Lieutenant La Flaga," he said. "I suppose there's no real harm in it, after all."

* * *

ZAFT _Nazca_-class Destroyer _Vesalius_, Flagship of the Le Creuset Team, Heliopolis Airspace

Rau Le Creuset was something of an enigma to everyone around him; the man was reasonably well-built, had wavy blond hair down to his back and a handsome mouth and jaw line, but hid his nose, cheeks and eyes behind a white mask and wore white gloves at all times. He suffered from health complications that he hadn't detailed to anyone, not even the doctors aboard the ships under his command as a senior officer of ZAFT.

The man was an incredible pilot with one of the greatest records in all of ZAFT, and a ruthless tactician as well, leading the soldiers under his command with brilliant tactics born of natural cunning and a keen intuition, but acting with little to no mercy for his enemies. He was charismatic, with a smooth voice and the ability to convince just about anyone to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, even in the face of actions so risky that no sane military leader would ever allow them.

But for all that, the man could also be incredibly gentle, almost fatherly to the people around him whether they were younger or older than him; he had an adoptive daughter he'd been looking after since she was a baby, and knew how to look out for people. He was practically a surrogate father to the junior pilots under his command, one of whom had outright lost his father and the other had lost his mother, which had left his father a wreck rather unfit to raise a teenager.

But the man known as the Crucible of Yggdrasil didn't coddle them either; he'd just sent those very same teenage boys and girls with only a small escort into potentially hostile territory where they would be relying on everything going perfectly according to plan to get out or meet the reaper long before their time.

It was their duty though, and everyone knew it; they appreciated the trust Rau had placed in them.

Still, there was at least one person questioning Rau's current actions.

"Really, don't look so frustrated Ades," said Rau to Frederik Ades, the captain of the _Vesalius_ as the blond stood at the tactical display table at the back of the bridge.

"But I don't think it would be unreasonable to at least wait for the Council's opinion," argued Ades, though it was somewhat moot since the small troop transports had already launched to deliver the troops to the aging colony.

"Ordinarily I might agree with you," said Rau, picking up a plastic bag velcroed to the table, "but in this case, I'm certain it would be too late by the time the Council came to a decision." He gently sent the bag floating through the air towards Ades, giving the captain another look at the picture contained within: the upper torso and part of the head of a dull gray mobile suit of a design they'd never seen before.

"But these could just as easily be Orb's own weapons."

"The possibility had occurred to me, but no—I have a sixth sense for these things. My gut says that these unknown weapons belong to the Earth Forces… and over the years, I've learned just how important it is to trust that instinct."

Ades frowned, but didn't pursue the argument any further.

"Besides," said Rau too softly for Ades to hear, "that Amelia is feeling off concerns me as well."

* * *

Heliopolis

Leaning against a glass wall while waiting at one of the colony elecar stations, Misako Miyamura was trying _extremely_ hard to resist the urge to strangle the girls in front of her.

Their names were Flay Allster, Jessica Bradford and Misha Kaga, a stereotypical teenage girl posse responsible for giving more respectable female teens (like Misako) a bad name. At this particularly moment, Flay wasn't especially annoying—no, the really annoying thing was the way Jessica and Misha were noisily harassing Flay. Misako wondered if there was any jealousy driving the two.

Of course, Flay was gorgeous: she was small at five foot three inches, had intense long red hair, vibrant blue eyes and adorable facial features, with a figure far too well-developed for her age of just under fifteen years old, though it was hidden by her rather modest pink dress, her curves remarkably well-hidden by the overly girly clothes.

While curious if Flay's friends were jealous of her, Misako wasn't even slightly jealous herself: she was beautiful and she knew it, with stunning facial features, blue eyes, long brown-red hair, standing five foot seven inches with an above average bust, thin waist and wide hips, with curves in all the right places, plus she knew herself to be much smarter than the three girls in front of her, even when she'd been their age. She wasn't modest about it either, wearing a short-cut black sleeveless shirt that exposed her stomach and a hint of cleavage with a blue skirt that hung halfway to her knees.

Despite popular slander, in no way was she a slut of any variety, regardless of what others said about her typical choice of attire—truthfully, she just loved to draw the attention of others.

"Really, it's _nothing_," Flay insisted as Misako rubbed her temples and attempted to block out the noise.

"Oh really? You're _lying_."

"Come on you two, you're being incredibly rude!"

Misako had to agree with Flay there—she'd overheard enough of the conversation to know that it was about a love letter Flay had received from Sai Argyle, a classmate of Misako's. Flay didn't want to share it, which was of course her right to privacy, but her friends seemed determined to learn more about it.

"Hey, Misako!"

The new voice drew the attention of Misako and the little posse. The older redhead fought down a smile as she spotted her two childhood friends walking her way with a classmate.

"Sora, you're late! Ugh, I should've known you'd take forever to find him!"

"Sorry…"

"Don't apologize!" snapped Misako irritably. The look on Kira and Ayane's faces suggested they suspected Sora of apologizing just because it irritated Misako, but she wasn't paying them any mind. "I swear Sora, without me you'd be totally screwed." Misako placed a hand against her forehead and fake-swooned dramatically. "Ah, all my efforts for all these years and I still haven't figured out how to make you grow a pair or a spine."

"While I can't figure out what happened to the spine, I thought you were the one who ran off with the 'pair'," said Ayane, completely straight-faced. Misako's response was to blush crimson and start sputtering, same as Sora, while Flay and her friends looked thunderstruck at the crude implications. Kira paid attention to none of this, his attention focused solely on Flay.

The brunet had harbored an unconcealed crush on Flay for sometime now. It was a bit awkward though, since the two of them didn't know each other that well and, more to the point, Flay was engaged to Sai, and he happened to be Kira's best friend.

* * *

Meanwhile

Within the bowels of Heliopolis, a group of soldiers in ZAFT pilot suits were making their way through maintenance corridors towards the asteroid the colony had been coupled to, practically on the other side of the cylinder from where they'd entered, each preoccupied with their own thoughts.

One of them, who was pretty much the leader of the junior pilots in red suits among the group, was especially distracted. Fifteen years old, five foot seven inches tall with effeminate blue hair, striking green eyes and very handsome features, he'd garnered a lot of attention from others to the point of being an irritant in his life.

But, of course, that wasn't what was preoccupying the thoughts of Athrun Zala at this particularly moment. No, he was instead distracted by memories of a childhood friend of his, a naïve and kind-hearted boy who he'd known for years. They'd shared a distaste for the brewing conflict, and Athrun had assured his friend that the Earth and PLANTs would see eye-to-eye. But that didn't happen, and now, as he prepared to attack a neutral colony not unlike the lunar city where his friend lived, Athrun wondered what his old friend thought of this damned war.

The group came to a sudden stop as they reached the hatch that would lead them into the hollowed out asteroid; from there, they would move into the Morgenroete shipyard contained in the area where the colony and asteroid were coupled together, and strategically plant explosives to take out the Earth Forces personnel and ship they knew to be hiding within.

* * *

Morgenroete Inc. Heliopolis Branch

Kira and the others stepped into the workroom of Professor Kato, where Sai Argyle was waiting for them.

"Ah, you finally made it," he said with a faint smile, "and here I thought you'd simply set up a business selling tickets for watching Misako abuse Sora."

"It was tempting," muttered Kira as he stared at Sai while Sora and Ayane quickly restrained Misako from rushing forward and attacking Sai.

Sai was the oldest in Kira's circle of friends at sixteen, and he was tall at five foot nine, four inches taller than Kira. He had short, light brown hair and green eyes behind faintly-tinted glasses, with a bit more solid of a build than any of the others in the group, and sharp features. He was Kira's best friend by a long shot, despite the fact that he was engaged to the girl Kira was crushing on.

"Just give me the data already," said Kira with a slight groan. Sai smiled almost apologetically as he walked up and handed Kira a disk.

"Seriously, what is the professor thinking giving this kind of workload to a student?" questioned Ayane.

"Who knows?" said Sai with a faint shrug. "Anyways, any idea what it is you're working on Kira? What little I saw of it looked like new operating system software."

"I'd have to take a look at it myself to be sure," said Kira, "but if I had to guess, I'd say it was to improve the frame setup module. Just a program analysis, really."

At that moment, Kira noticed someone else in the room, a thin blond figure wearing a brown coat and hat.

"Uh, who's that?" asked Kira quietly, glancing at Sai.

"Oh, she says she's a guest of the Professor's, but that he hasn't had time to talk to her about why she came here," said Sai. He pushed his glasses up on his nose slightly. "She's apparently from the Homeland, and pretty eager to get back there."

"Oh, I see."

As they spoke, the blonde shifted irritably, throwing a brief glare at the door to Professor Kato's office.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Rau glanced at his watch and smiled thinly; it was time for the second and riskiest phase of the operation to begin. The infiltration team should have planted the explosives by now and gotten into position, with the explosives moments away from going off.

"It's time," he said to Ades, who gave a slight nod.

"Weigh anchor!" he ordered. "_Vesalius_ launch!"

Following orders, the pilot released the anchors holding the _Vesalius_ to the asteroid and fired up the engines, beginning to maneuver the vessel around the asteroid and into sight of Heliopolis, the _Laurasia_-class frigate _Gamow_ following less than a minute later.

This was the risk, the gamble: they were initiating hostile actions towards Heliopolis, and if things went wrong, not only would they mostly be wiped out or captured, but they'd have left behind a massive political mess that could cost ZAFT the war. If the timing was off by more than a minute, they could find themselves facing a potentially overwhelming force.

But one did not play it safe in war. Rau's smirk was grim as the two ships of his fleet began to launch virtually all of their mobile suits, nine in total, with his CGUE and a pair of GINNs remaining in the hangar, one due to damage and the others because there were no available pilots after most of them had been sent into Heliopolis.

Still, they had enough GINNs to wipe out a small fleet… and the skilled pilots to pull such a task off. Despite the gamble, Rau was certain of his victory.

* * *

Professor Kato's Workroom

The six teens had been blissfully unaware of anything wrong—of the panic in the dock control rooms, the ten war machines and their motherships bearing down on the colony, the launch of an Earth Forces transport and more than a dozen mobile armors from both Heliopolis and the transport in question or of the Atlantic Federation soldiers prepping a new warship for launch while others moved untested prototype weapons across the colony—at least until Sora had suddenly stumbled, one arm pressing against his stomach as though nauseous. The others were moving to check on him when the entire colony started shaking, knocking everyone in the room except for Kira off their feet.

"What the–? A meteoroid?" questioned Sai, grabbing the edge of the desk next to him to pull himself up.

"No idea," said Kira as the tremors died down as he rushed to Sora's side. "But whatever it was…"

"Yeah, can't be good," said Sora, gasping slightly for breath. "Also, the timing of that kind of disturbs me. Now get me out of here so I can maybe feel safe in my own skin again."

* * *

Heliopolis Airspace

Mu knew that they were in serious trouble pretty much from the instant he launched. Sure, he'd killed five GINNs single-handed at the Battle of Endymion, but the stories generally neglected to mention that he hadn't fought them all at once—and that was five GINNs over the course of the entire several hours of battle.

Here, if he was lucky, he'd probably have to take apart seven GINNs himself over the course of several _minutes_. As it was, even as he deployed two of his Moebius Zero's four wired gunbarrels to attack a GINN from three directions at once, two GINNs bypassed the battle entirely and flew into the Heliopolis harbor.

Still, he had to do what he could—Mu locked onto the GINN and opened fire. The pilot was good, but couldn't evade all three angles of attack, and two cannon rounds tore into the GINN's hip, inflicting tremendous damage and knocking it off-balance.

That gave Mu an opening, and he fired the linear cannon from the main fuselage, tearing a whole straight through the GINN's torso, obliterating it.

But even as he did that, three of the regular Moebius mobile armors went down to gunfire from the 76mm machine guns of the GINNs while a fourth—piloted by Gail, a junior pilot he'd been teaching on the _Chartres_—got sliced in half.

Mu cursed, recalling his gunbarrels, and tried to vector in to attack another GINN.

* * *

Heliopolis

The ZAFT infiltration team had now entered the colony proper, and were looking down at a trio of trailers moving across the colony.

"There they are," said Yzak Joule with a slight smirk, "just like the Commander said." Yzak was probably the proudest member of the infiltration team—he was sixteen years old, five foot nine inches tall with an average frame, sharp facial features, blue eye and neck-length silver hair, though the last was hidden by his helmet right now.

"What, prod them enough and they'll come out of their holes?" said Dearka Elsman with a slight snicker. Resident team joker to the core pretty much summed him up—he was a few months shy of seventeen, five foot nine with a well-built frame, playful features, beady violet eyes and blond hair contrasting sharply with his dark skin.

"There are only three though," said Nicol Amalfi, staring down at the convoy on the colony highway. He was the youngest of them at fourteen, and only five foot five tall with a slight frame, soft features, brown eyes and eye-catching green hair.

"Intel said there were eight," added Rusty Mackenzie, "so that means there must still be five in the warehouse." The oldest and most experienced of the ZAFT Reds in the group, Rusty was almost eighteen and five foot ten inches tall with a solid frame, blue eyes and messy orange hair. Despite his experience on the frontlines, he was the kindest of the group by far, and something of a mediating influence on the others.

"Sure, but which warehouse?" asked Trisha Summers, glancing at her teammates. "There are only what, twenty of them? I don't want to stick around long enough to search all of them." Trisha, like Rusty, had been fighting on the frontlines for some time; she was seventeen, five foot eight, had stunning facial features, neck-length purple hair, intense red eyes and a well-curved frame that belied her incredible combat ability.

Athrun let out a sigh in response while the last of the ZAFT Reds, Amelia Hawkins, stared down at the warehouses.

Amelia was the second oldest of the seven Reds, younger than Rusty but several months older than Trisha. She was five feet, eight inches tall, had soft, cute facial features, deep brown eyes and messy brown hair that fell just past her neck. She had a very slight figure with small breasts and hips, though still thin enough for some curves, set atop incredibly long legs.

"Hmmm… we'll just have to split up," said Amelia, glancing at the others. "I'll head to the warehouses, try to find the remaining weapons. How about the rest of you?"

"I'll go with you," said Rusty, taking charge. "Trisha, Athrun, Mitch, Erik, the four of you will come with me and Amelia. The rest of you get down there and grab those machines—make sure to deactivate the self-destruct first thing. Anyone left after that should head for the warehouses to back up the rest of us—shouldn't be hard to find, you can probably just look for which one is on fire and making gunfire noises."

"Roger that," said almost everyone at once.

* * *

Technical College

After the initial tremors had died down, the students and unexpected guest from Professor Kato's lab had rushed off for the elevators and stairwell, with more tremors starting during their little mad dash, Misako taking the lead and opening the stairwell door.

"What's going on here?!" she demanded hotly as soon as she saw people in the stairwell.

"It's a ZAFT attack," said one of the men, pausing briefly. "Some of their mobile suits have entered the colony!"

"WHAT?!" shrieked Misako furiously. The noise prompted Sai, Ayane and Sora to cover their ears, so they didn't notice as the blonde gasped and ran off down the corridor.

"Hey, wait!" called Kira, rushing after her while Misako started cursing viciously, blocking out the world around her.

"Kira?" said Sora, running after his friend.

"Sora wait!" called Ayane, turning to pursue… only for a particularly big tremor to shake the building, causing Ayane to fall to the floor and snapping Misako out of her rage for a brief moment.

"Just go, we'll catch up!" Sora called back as he continued to run.

It didn't take long for Kira and Sora to catch up the blonde, Kira catching her arm and pulling her to a stop.

"What are you doing? It's a dead-end that way," said Kira.

"Stop tailing me," she said irritably, "you two better head back and hook back up with the others."

"Not without you," said Sora, getting ready to grab her and help Kira drag her back… only for another heavy tremor to hit the building at the same time the sound of an explosion reached their ears. Wind rushed through the corridor from behind them, and then a section of it collapsed, trapping them on the wrong side. The blonde had lost her hat, and the boys could now see her tomboyish features and wild but feminine hair more clearly, along with her light hazel eyes.

"O-kay," said Sora slowly, "I guess we're not going back that way. Um, Kira, do you know where we should go from here?"

"We're near the factory district," said Kira, "so we should be able to find some shelters there."

"Got it, let's go," said Sora as Kira grabbed the blonde's hand and started dragging her along with the two boys.

"Hey, let go of me you jerk!"

"Jerk?" questioned Kira, glancing back. He was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

"I just never thought we'd get… involved," she said.

* * *

Factory District

The ZAFT infiltrators landed in the factory district, not too far from where one of the two GINNs that had entered the colony was even now wreaking utter havoc.

"So, where do we start?" asked Trisha.

"That one," said Amelia, pointing at the warehouse marked with a massive 13. She couldn't quite place it, but there was a feeling in the pit of her stomach that seemed to be drawing her that way…

"You sure about that?" asked Athrun.

"Not really, it's just a gut feeling."

"Might as well go with it," said Rusty, "we need to start somewhere."

Inside the warehouse itself, the Atlantic soldiers and factory workers were struggling to get the mobile suits operational. Makoto was at the cradle of the X206, running computer checkups, booting the incomplete OS and setting it up for an APU startup.

"Right, brilliant," muttered Makoto. "She thinks a group of untrained Naturals can use an incomplete OS to fight with these mobile suits. I should add that the last reports I heard said the top guns trained for this struggled just to get them to move. Personally, I blame the OS…"

Makoto continued to mutter to herself right up until the gunfire started. At that point, eyes wide with fright, she ran behind the X206 cradle and huddled down.

"Damn it all, why don't I have a sidearm?" groaned Makoto to herself as the sound of gunfire turned from bursts to pretty much constant, and here she was trapped with no way to defend herself. How delightful. There was an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach, but something drew attention upwards at the same time.

Up above, Kira, Sora and their blonde companion rushed out onto a second level catwalk, giving them a nice view of the warzone the place had become. Down on the ground, Makoto could see them, and she stared in shock and more than a little horror that they were here.

"W-what the…? Mobile suits?" questioned Kira, shocked. Sora gulped.

"Uh… I think I might know what you've been working on Kira…" he said nervously. The blonde, meanwhile, fell to her knees, gripping the railing.

"I knew it… the Earth Forces prototype mobile weapons…" she said, nearly sobbing. "Father… I knew you betrayed us all!" This last was shouted just loud enough for a few people on the ground to hear. Makoto was wondering who the girl was, while Murrue spun around and leveled her assault rifle at the source, pausing in surprise when she realized she was staring up at a trio of teenagers. Sora, seeing the rifle pointed their way, grabbed the blonde and ran for it.

"You can cry later, like when there aren't a few hundred guns being fired in our general vicinity!" he said with more than a bit of panic in his voice as he fled the warehouse, Kira right behind the pair.

"Yamato-san, Honda-san… what were the two of you doing here?" muttered Makoto.

* * *

Meanwhile

The three prototype mobile suits being transported across the highway all suddenly stood up, one after another, their pilots inputting some quick modifications to the OS so that they could at least be moved halfway decently.

"Well, OS aside, pretty impressive," said Yzak with a faint smirk as he looked over a bit of the data on the display in front of him. "How 'bout yours Dearka?"

"_Doesn't seem like the time to worry about it; I've got enough adjustments done, and it'll move. For now, that's all that matters._"

"And Nicol?"

"_Should be good here,_" said Nicol, "_wish we could go back up Athrun and the others, but these things are too clumsy right now. We should've brought GINN OS-es with us._"

"Hindsight Nicol," said Yzak. "Come on you two, let's get these back to Commander Le Creuset."

* * *

Elsewhere

Kira, Sora and the blonde panted as they arrived at a shelter entrance, each more than a little exhausted and scared.

"See," said Kira, pressing the contact switch for the shelter, "some people have evacuated here."

"_Is there still someone out there?_" came the voice from the speaker.

"Yes," said Kira quickly, "my friends and I need to get inside. Please open the door."

"_Friends? But we're filled to capacity already; there's still shelter thirty-seven in the next block, can you make it there?_"

"Probably," said Sora, "but there's a warzone that way. Can't you at least take even one of us?"

There was a brief pause.

"_We can take one more, but that's it. Sorry._"

"That'll be fine, thanks," said Kira, grabbing the blonde as the door opened and pushing her inside.

"Huh? Hey what are you doing?!" she demanded.

"We live here, we know this place, but you're not from Heliopolis," said Kira. "We'll be able to move more easily without you, and this way you'll be safe."

"No, wait, please don't!" cried the blonde as the door closed and the elevator carried her down.

"Well, heading back through that warehouse," said Sora. "This will be fun, _loads_ of it!"

"Come on, let's just go," said Kira.

* * *

Warehouse 13

The sounds of gunfire had been coming less and less frequently, but the fire had gotten significantly worse in the meantime. Still, Makoto would call it an improvement.

"Ramius-chūi, X206 is ready to go, but there's no way it can move with the current OS!" called Makoto, who'd returned to the cradle controls and was crouched next to them with Ensign Hamana providing cover for her.

"Well we've got to try!" said Murrue, firing off a burst of suppressing fire.

Makoto hesitated, fumbling at her skirt until she felt the flash drive in the pocket again. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"I think I can get it running, but I don't think you'll care too much for it!" called Makoto.

"At this point I don't care, just get it moving!"

"Hey, look out!" cried Hamana, grabbing Makoto suddenly and pulling her behind him. An instant later, the sound of burst gunfire filled Makoto's ears, and warm blood splashed in her hair and on her clothes.

Somehow, the blonde managed to not scream as Hamana fell to the ground next to her, covered in blood and with several bullet holes in his body, groaning in pain. It didn't take a genius to realize he wouldn't survive long enough for medical aid.

Makoto looked up. A ZAFT Red stood at the end of the cradle, submachine gun leveled her way.

Time seemed to freeze for her for just an instant, and Makoto thought she saw a faint image in front of her of a falling jewel-like sapphire blue seed that suddenly exploded in a burst of light. Her pupils shrunk, her irises dilated, and instinct took over.

The blonde grabbed Hamana's fallen sidearm, leveled it at the ZAFT Red before the pilot could take aim again, and pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession. Blood burst from the ZAFT pilot's chest as two bullets tore through her torso, and as her body jerked slightly, the third bullet shot through her helmet and tore through Trisha's head. On pure reflex, she pulled the trigger of her submachine gun again, but the random burst of fire hit nothing.

Next to the console, Makoto panted, her brain catching up with what she'd just done. She'd been trained to kill, to fire a gun, even to pilot… but none of that meant she'd ever actually killed anyone before, not even in self-defense. So she did what was only natural in that situation.

She rolled to the side slightly and emptied the contents of her stomach on the concrete next to her.

Murrue had no idea what was going on with Makoto and Hamana; all she knew was that most of the ZAFT soldiers were dead now, but the same was true of her own subordinates. She'd just slipped back behind cover to get a new magazine ready for her rifle when she heard a voice cry out.

"Look out behind you!"

Murrue instinctively spun, and saw a ZAFT soldier up on the catwalk with a submachine gun. She didn't even think about what she did next, leveling her rifle and opening fire. Somehow, at least one of her half a dozen or so remaining bullets found its mark and silenced the ZAFT soldier. Murrue glanced towards the source of the cry and saw two of the three teenagers from earlier up on another section of catwalk.

"Those kids again," she muttered as she ejected her spent magazine. "Why did he…?" Murrue heard a grunt and turned her head to see that one of her subordinates had just been gunned down. She dropped her rifle, grabbed her sidearm and popped out of cover, firing twice and downing the last of the ZAFT Greens. Then she turned to look back at the teens on the catwalk.

"Come down here!" she called.

"Thanks, but we're off to the shelters in the left block, never mind us!" called the brunet, the same one who'd warned her about the danger a minute ago.

"Kira, Sora, there's nothing left behind those doors!" shouted Makoto, her stomach back under control. Kira, Sora and Murrue all gasped in surprise, the former two looking down and spotting her. She stared up at them, now back on her feet. "Just get down here now before something else explodes!"

"Makoto?" gasped Sora. Kira, however, decided to listen to the two women down below—particularly as Makoto's statement had been punctuated by an explosion from the direction he and Sora had been heading, and especially given that Makoto had called them using their first names and no honorifics.

Murrue decided she'd ask about Makoto's association with the two teens later, and for now, started running towards the cockpit of the machine she was on.

"Come on," she called. Kira and Sora started running to try and find a way down, but quickly realized the only intact stairs were at the other end of the factory.

"So, um, how do we get down there?" asked Sora.

"Well… I've got an idea, but I think it's a pretty stupid one," said Kira, gripping the rail. Then he pulled himself up and over it, dropping down onto the machine the brunette factory worker was on.

"Ah, right, brilliant," muttered Sora dryly. However, before he could follow his crazy friend, another explosion shook the factory, and the catwalk gave out partially under his weight. "Oh, no, _this_ is what's brilliant." Not able to make a safe jump, Sora instead pulled and ran to a stable catwalk.

"Just get into one of the mobile suits and shut the hatch!" called Murrue. "This factory could blow at any minute!"

Meanwhile, Makoto had clambered onto the mobile suit cradle and then up onto the X206 proper. Her pupils were still shrunk, but her vision was arguably better than it had ever been, rather impressive given the circumstances.

That was how she realized she wasn't alone up here, with another ZAFT Red standing at the mobile suit's feet. He spotted her and raised his submachine gun, but Makoto acted first, raising her borrowed sidearm and firing twice at the ZAFT soldier. She didn't know if both bullets hit, but she did see him tumble off of the mobile suit, and she ran for the cockpit.

Kira landed on the cradle next to the mobile suit's head and climbed up onto it. He did so just in time to see Murrue fall to her knees, clutching at a wound on her right arm. Gasping, Kira rushed to her side, and saw a ZAFT Red rushing towards them with a knife.

Those eyes… Kira knew those eyes.

"Athrun?" he gasped. The ZAFT Red froze, eyes widening in shock.

"K-Kira?"

Up on the catwalk, Sora had finally reached a good place to jump from, onto the machine cradled next to the one Kira had landed on. He leapt the railing, and hoped he could land as well as his friend had.

He did not, and the landing was rather painful, but he didn't twist or break anything, so he'd call it a success. He glanced around him, concluded that no, there wasn't anyone shooting at him, and did as he'd been instructed earlier: namely, he leapt into the cockpit, found the hatch switch, and closed the hatch.

"Hmm, maybe I should try flying this thing," he muttered to himself. "I don't relish the thought of this thing becoming my coffin."

In the cradle next to the X206 that Makoto had just shot Rusty off of was the X308, with Amelia racing across it.

_Rusty and Trisha are down. Hard to believe_, she thought to herself. She'd run out of ammo, so she didn't even try to shoot that girl that had shot Rusty, despite the fact that her instincts were screaming at her to kill the girl.

Instead, Amelia did the sensible thing and leapt into the cockpit.

Kira and Athrun stared at each other for a few brief seconds, but the shocking reunion was interrupted when Murrue raised her sidearm and attempted to open fire, but she couldn't hold the gun steady, so her shots were complete misses, and Athrun turned and ran. He activated his suit thruster system to help him jump over to another cradle with an open cockpit, and made a mad dash for it, throwing himself inside and shutting the hatch.

_Kira… it couldn't be…_

As Athrun fled, Murrue stood up and knocked the stunned Kira into the open cockpit they were standing next to before dropping into it herself.

Panting from adrenaline rush, Makoto dropped herself into the cockpit of the last prototype, its OS active but all but the main system monitor blank as she shut the hatch. Then, she pulled the flash drive out of her skirt pocket, grateful there was no blood on it, and plugged it in, but she quickly realized there wasn't time to copy the GINN OS.

Instead, Makoto triggered the OS to full operation, glancing briefly at what was displayed as she gripped the controls.

**MOBILE SUIT OPERATION SYSTEM  
/Version NV8 – N099/  
G**eneral  
**U**nilateral  
**N**euro – Link  
**D**ispersive  
**A**utonomic  
**M**aneuver  
**G.U.N.D.A.M Synthesis System  
O.M.N.I. Enforcer**

As another explosion shook the factory district and triggered a chain of additional explosions steadily growing bigger in size, five mobile suits broke free of their cradles with a series of loud snaps and the GAT-X303 Aegis, GAT-X308 Guardian, GAT-X105 Strike, GAT-X107 Adamant and GAT-X206 Dauntless stood up as the explosions completely engulfed the burning warehouse around them.

* * *

**Author's Notes: So, what did everyone think? As I was writing this, I ended up deciding to subvert a lot of the things people were probably expecting. I gave slightly more detailed introductions for characters who weren't even going to survive the chapter, and I cut Miriallia and Tolle from interacting with Kira during these events, as well as removing Kuzzey. Also, unlike AL13's _a Retelling_ and my own _SEED Dauntless_, ZAFT knew exactly how much they were looking for.  
**

**Regarding the OCs, I obviously removed Chris (at least, obviously to those familiar with the Old Divinity Saga), replacing him instead with Sora Honda, who I assure you will be a significantly more flawed character than Chris was; no, Ayane does not replace Liz, despite being the sister of Chris's replacement. They're totally different characters.**

**Makoto herself is changed _massively_ from her Old Divinity Saga incarnation, but in some respects she is now more true to what I wanted her to be. I greatly enjoyed having her use the SEED Mode this early on as opposed to _SEED Dauntless_ where she didn't use it till around the halfway point, and I _especially_ enjoyed having the SEED Mode used outside of MS combat, with Makoto using it on-foot. That's something that you just never see done, and it's so very disappointing.**

**Other than Sora and Makoto, the OCs include Ayane, Misako and Amelia. More details on each will be forthcoming in the story itself, so you can look forward to that, and the mecha specs will be posted as the story progresses. For now, I'm tired.  
**

**Once again, I hope everyone has enjoyed this start to the Divinity Saga reboot, though I apologize as its release pretty much guarantees _White Queen_ won't receive an update this Friday (but that was looking unlikely anyway). I hope you all enjoy future chapters of this story, and please leave a review; I want to know if you think I'm doing right by this so far.**

**Say****ō**nara, min'na desu!


	2. The First Experience

**Well it's about time I got this posted. Oi. I know that I've been horrible about updates period for awhile now; truth be told, the only reason _The White Queen_ was updating so consistently despite the fact that I was in school was because I'd written most of it ahead of time on that one.  
**

**I do want to try to get in the habit of updating a story every Friday, but I'm sure as hell not holding my breath.**

**Anyways, I'm sure some people have noticed, but I've taken down nearly all stories of the Old Divinity Saga: the one-shot series, _Gundam SEED Dauntless_, _Gundam SEED Serenity_ and _Gundam SEED Divinity_. There were a few reasons for this, but one of the biggest was that I _have_ abandoned the Old Divinity Saga. I'm also hoping to attract new readers to the New Divinity Saga, and don't want the Old Divinity Saga lying around as a potential source of spoilers. Now, I do one day intend to put a "remastered" Old Divinity Saga up on my site, but that's a long, _long_ ways off and it will not be made available on FF.**

**I know a lot of people still read those stories; I'm not entirely sure why myself, but I've just kind of accepted that they did. In the end, though, it didn't change what I felt needed to be done. Old Divinity is gone; I'm older and wiser now, and so I'm intent on telling the story of Divinity _right_ this time.**

**And a few quick notes: Makoto has been retconned to be blonde (don't ask why), with the story image the inspiration for her appearance. Another small "retcon" was something intended from the beginning, and that is Makoto's habit of speaking Japanese. Underlined dialogue, "like this," is being spoken in a language besides English. Unless stated otherwise, it's probably safe to assume the language in question is Japanese, barring obvious times it wouldn't be, I.E. two people from Russia talking to each other, but even then, I'll probably actually mention the language used just for the sake of clarity.**

**Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply. I claim ownership of Makoto Arata, Amelia Hawkins, the GAT-X107 Adamant, GAT-X206 Dauntless and GAT-X308 Guardian.**

* * *

Second Phase: The First Experience  


January 25th, C.E. 71

* * *

Heliopolis Morgenroete Factory District

Misako was throwing something of a fit as she fled with Sai and Ayane away from a GINN and towards the next colony block to try and find a shelter, all the ones they'd reached so far either full or destroyed.

Her anger, though, wasn't over the situation so much as it was the fact that Sora was missing. If she ever found her childhood friend again, he was going to be in so much trouble for giving her the heart attack she was currently suffering from.

Suddenly, a massive explosion from in front of them shook the colony, and Misako and Sai were blown off their feet by the massive gust of wind from in front of them, Ayane stumbling back while two other teens behind them, a boy and girl, got blasted as well, with the boy knocked on his butt while the girl managed to stay upright.

Then, from within that explosion, five massive forms emerged, drawing shocked stares from the civilian onlookers as each of the mobile suits landed…

… and one of them stumbled severely on landing and toppled right to the ground. Two of them landed, perfectly steady on their feet, a third landed and stumbled forward a bit, wobbling like a drunk man, while the last landed in a crouch, smashing one hand into the ground to steady itself before standing back up steadily.

"Rusty, Athrun, you guys okay?" questioned the GINN pilot, Miguel Aiman, glancing at the mobile suits and wondering which of them was in which machine.

"_Rusty and Trisha are dead,_" said Amelia, drawing a gasp of shock from Miguel and a small one from Athrun—he'd known about Trisha, but hadn't seen what happened to Rusty. "_At least one of those machines has been boarded by an Earth Forces soldier._"

"_No, all three of the others are piloted by the Earth Forces,_" said Athrun, pulling back over to the GINN along with Amelia, confirming for them which machines they controlled. "_The rest of our squad was killed by the security forces as well._"

"What?!"

Within the Strike, Murrue struggled to get her balance, while the display screens started automatically opening small windows zoomed in on things of note—the GINN, the stolen Guardian and Aegis, the Adamant that was struggling to move, the Dauntless standing unmoving facing the stolen machines, and several groups of civilians on the ground.

One of these images drew a gasp of shock from Kira.

"Sai, Ayane and Misako?" he gasped.

In the Adamant, Sora wasn't getting nearly as good of a view of things—his cameras weren't catching as much, and he struggled to get the machine standing.

"Damn, what do all these things even do?" he muttered to himself—between his complete lack of any sort of training and the mess that the OS was, moving the machine was pretty much an exercise in futility.

Things were different in the Dauntless though.

Makoto didn't expect to have time to shutdown the OS and install the GINN OS over it. She had only the bare minimum experience with computer engineering, as necessary to let her fine-tune a mobile suit OS to her own use.

In her current state of heightened awareness though, that was enough—and the blonde's fingers danced across the keyboard, modifying the top levels of the system to be more like what she was familiar with and more operational. She didn't know how long she had before ZAFT decided to move, so she took it as fast as she could without too much risk of messing up.

Miguel grit his teeth slightly and leveled his machine gun at the machine struggling to get up. He fired off a single high-explosive round near its hand and watched as that caused it to fall to the ground again. He mentally pegged it as a non-threat for the time being, shifted aim to the stumbling machine, and fired two rounds at its feet. The mobile suit wobbled dangerously, stumbling away, and he concluded that it wasn't really a big threat either.

He shifted his gun to fire at the third mobile suit, but as soon as he aimed it that way, the gray machine spread the wing binders on its back and leapt into the air before he pulled the trigger.

"What?!" gasped Miguel. Athrun gasped slightly as well, while Amelia's eyes narrowed slightly.

"_The pilot of that machine… she's the one who killed Rusty and Trisha,_" she said, drawing gasps from both of the others. "_There's something different about her._"

"So it would seem," said Miguel, thinking things over quickly. "Athrun, Amelia, you two get those machines out of here. On your way out, contact Shawn and tell him to get over here and back me up. I'll test these machines and see if we can still capture them."

With that, Miguel leveled his machine gun and opened up on the machine in the air, but as he did so, something happened, it's armor sizzling and shifting colors—the limbs, torso, skirt and head turning from dull-gray to silver, while the shoulder armor and joints turned to a darker shade. A few bullets found their mark, but did absolutely no damage, causing Miguel to gape slightly in shock as the machine landed on the ground again.

"What the–?"

"_They're all equipped with a system known as Phase Shift armor,_" said Athrun; "_while active, it renders the machine impervious to the GINN's sword and rifle._" As he spoke, the Aegis and the Guardian activated their own PS armor, the Aegis turning red as the Guardian turned dark green.

"Pilot of X206, identify yourself," said Murrue over the radio, though she had a strong suspicion already.

"_It's Makoto, Ramius-chūi,_" came the young blonde's voice. "_Are Yamato-san and Honda-san with you?_"

"Just one of them," said Murrue, glancing at the boy in the cockpit with her, who had turned his attention to the image of the Dauntless in surprise. "The OS is still incomplete; how are you…?"

"_Long story, I'll tell you another time,_" said Makoto as another GINN suddenly arrived and the two stolen machines lifted off. Murrue didn't blame Makoto for her sudden panic, given the situation, and she triggered the PS armor of the Strike as well. "_Is it Yamato-san or Honda-san with you? Who's in the X107?_"

"_I'm here,_" came the voice of the other boy. "_I don't think I can do much but hide out in here._"

"_Find the Phase Shift armor switch and hit it; that'll at least be better then lying there unarmored,_" said Makoto. "_Chūi, I think I can take on one of those GINNs. Think you can get the other?_"

Murrue didn't get the chance to answer before both GINNs rushed them, Miguel attacking the Dauntless and Shawn Russell attacking the Strike with their swords.

The Strike's armor sizzled and shifted, its body turning from dull gray to almost entirely white, its torso a darker grayish shade, and Murrue managed to move both arms overhead to block the sword, but the Strike stumbled back under the force of the impact anyways.

At the same time, the Dauntless shifted back, avoiding Miguel's slash, and lashed out with a punch, catching the GINN right in the face and sending it flying back.

"Um… wow, I didn't think that would work," muttered Makoto in surprise; even with the problematic circumstances, the Dauntless was more fluid and powerful than the GINNs she'd been trained to operate. Of course, that fluidity presented its own problems, as the machine moved different from what she'd been trained for, but she was remarkably adaptable right now. "Alright, as much fun as beating the GINN down with X206's bare hands would be, I don't think I've got the time for it. Weapons…"

As Makoto searched for weapons, Murrue struggled under Shawn's assault, as he continuously swung his sword at the Strike in order to make it impossible for her to gain any semblance of balance.

This continued up until Murrue nearly stumbled back onto the last of the civilians in the area, at which point Kira couldn't sit still anymore and intervened, pushing aside Murrue's arms in order to get at the controls himself.

The instant he did so, the Strike ducked under another slash unexpectedly, then stood back up while lashing out with a clumsy uppercut, clipping the GINN as Shawn instinctively pulled back.

"What the hell?" muttered Shawn in surprise, hesitating slightly—that last movement had been pretty smooth, but the mobile suit was still moving clumsily.

"You can't keep fighting like this," said Kira, "there are still people in the area." He reached for the keyboard and started typing, trying to get a look at the OS, and quickly realized what the problem was, all in the time it took the GINN to draw its machinegun and open fire, with Murrue stumbling the Strike out of the way even more clumsily then before, now that Kira was restricting the movement of her right arm. "How in the world did you plan to move this thing with an OS like this?"

"It's not complete!" objected Murrue, but Kira wasn't listening, his eyes widening in shock.

"But wait… this is…" Kira turned to look at Murrue. "Why is my program on this machine?" Murrue blinked in surprise.

"What did you say?!"

However, the two were distracted as Shawn came back in with his sword.

Meanwhile, Makoto had discovered that she'd forgotten the Dauntless' equipment back in the warehouse, and neither the primary weapon system nor the CIWS were currently loaded.

Fortunately, this did not leave her completely unarmed.

"Alright you bastard, this is what you get for attacking a colony of _my_ country!" snarled Makoto, ejecting a cylinder from her wrist guard into the Dauntless' right hand… and then activated it, a blade of blue plasma igniting from the beam saber handle. Then she went charging at the GINN attacking her.

"What the hell?!" cried Miguel in shock as he dodged the somewhat clumsy initial slash. "What is that thing?!"

"The beam saber weighs nothing," muttered Makoto as she pulled back slightly, "I'm overcompensating." She was, after all, used to fighting with the heavier weapons of the GINN. Her fingers danced across the keyboard, making a quick, temporary fix to the OS. "This should be better."

The Dauntless drove forward again and Makoto's slash was considerably smoother this time, prompting Miguel to try and parry it instead… only to have the blade cut straight through his sword and continue on to slice off the GINN's head and a part of its right arm.

Miguel had just enough time to gasp in shock before Makoto delivered a heavy punch to the GINN's torso, sending it crashing to the ground and badly jostling Miguel, who hit his head hard against his seat and passed out.

While Makoto had been dealing with Miguel, Shawn had managed to knock the Strike over entirely, badly jostling the two occupants and nearly dropping it on the last of the civilians in the area.

Since the civilians in question included some of his friends, Kira decided to take action.

"Get out of the way," he snapped at Murrue as he starting typing away at the keyboard, "there's no way you can operate this thing with an OS like this—the program was designed for exoskeleton robotics control, not to drive a mobile suit!"

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that you designed this OS?!" demanded Murrue hotly, but Kira wasn't listening, distracted as he was by trying to rebuild the program to something more appropriate. Fortunately, the GINN that had been attacking them seemed to have moved off.

"Just get out of the seat, I don't have time to show you how to use this thing and there are still civilians out there," said Kira, frustrated; Murrue hesitated for only a second before relenting, because really, at this point, what was the worst that could happen?

As soon as Murrue vacated the seat, Kira took her place in it, and stood the Strike up even as he continued to reprogram the OS; it was at this point that the two realized why the GINN hadn't continued to attack them: it had moved instead to intercept the Dauntless after Makoto defeated the other GINN.

"Oh no you don't," growled Kira, rushing forward and grabbing the GINN from behind with the Strike's left hand. "This ends now!" A compartment in the Strike's right hip opened up and partially ejected a folded assault knife. Kira grabbed the Armor Schneider, unfolded it, and stabbed it into the GINN's neck.

"_Ramius-chūi, Yamato-san, get back!_" came Makoto's voice; Kira didn't need to be told twice, moving the Strike away from the GINN… and then the Dauntless skewered the cockpit on its beam saber.

Silence followed for a moment, disturbed only by the panting over the radio, the civilians on the ground and the sound of the fires from the burning warehouses.

"Makoto… was that really necessary?" asked Kira, feeling sick to his stomach.

"_You can't disable a GINN with a knife to the neck Yamato-san,_" replied Makoto, sounding a bit shaken herself, "_and while I seem to have knocked out the other GINN pilot, I didn't think my odds for doing it again were good, and this way the GINN isn't going to explode either._"

"_So it's over,_" said Sora. "_Um… what now?_"

"_Ramius-chūi? Given the circumstances, I'm willing to follow your lead._"

Murrue blinked in surprise before leaning forward a bit.

"Um, yes," she said uncertainly, "well, for now, retrieve the Adamant; we'll get out of the machines and talk directly." She glanced at her injured arm, wondering how long she had before the adrenaline ran out and the wound started hurting again. "That will also give us a chance to treat our injuries."

"_Roger that; we should also get that GINN pilot out of the… oh crap!_"

As they'd been speaking, the GINN in question had started moving again, standing back up; fortunately, instead of attacking, it simply lifted into the air and fled.

"_Huh… I guess he decided it was time to cut losses and run. Good thing too, I'm not sure I could've really kept up with how things are now._"

* * *

Heliopolis Airspace

While things had begun going decidedly downhill for ZAFT within the colony, outside of it, the ZAFT forces had taken almost total control of the airspace.

Oh, the Alliance and Orb forces hadn't done too badly for themselves, managing to take out four of the seven GINNs that had remained outside, but the Orb mobile armors had been wiped out, and all that remained to fight the remaining mobile suits were the Moebius Zero and the _Chatres_.

"_Lieutenant La Flaga, we've lost control! We're… AAHHH!_"

The _Chartres_ collided with the side of Heliopolis and Mu found himself alone against three GINNs and two ZAFT warships. The mobile armor ace growled in frustration as he pursued the GINN that had damaged the _Chartres_ and left it to crash.

"Can't we do something about this difference in battle strength?!" demanded Mu angrily, tired at this point of being so thoroughly outmatched.

He fired his linear gun on the GINN, but the pilot had pulled out of his crosshairs as he was pulling the trigger and the round missed be a wide margin.

Unwilling to waste anymore of his limited supply of power and ammo for the linear gun, Mu instead redeployed all four of his gunbarrels and opened fire from all directions, destroying the GINN's rifle and landing several shots on its right arm and main body, forcing the GINN to withdraw, though Mu was sure that ZAFT would be able to repair it in a matter of hours.

Still, this left him with only two GINNs. He could manage that, and hope that his allies within the colony were doing better. But then he spotted two mobile suits exiting Heliopolis, and cursed when he realized what had happened.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

"Olor's taken damage," said the hangar control officer. "Prepare for emergency landing, fire crews to B Deck."

"Olor's been disabled in a battle as simple as this?" muttered Ades in surprise.

"From the looks of it, we have an unforeseen problem," said Rau. "A rather annoying fly buzzing around."

"Huh?"

"Sir, transmission from Athrun Zala and Amelia Hawkins; they say that three of the machines are still in enemy hands and that Miguel and Shawn stayed behind to determine if capture is still viable."

Rau frowned slightly.

"I see… then that can only mean that Rusty and probably Trisha failed," he said. "That's certainly odd, and it may mean there's more unforeseen problems than him." Rau unbuckled his seat and pushed himself towards the rear of the bridge. "I'm launching; I'll deal with the final mobile armor and go check on Miguel and Shawn personally. Signal all other forces to withdraw."

"Yes Commander."

* * *

Heliopolis

Without being attacked by GINNs, Sora was able to get the Adamant moving just well enough that Makoto was able to help him move the machine into a temporary standby position, kneeling in such a way that a person could hop into it easily from the ground. Kira had already moved the Strike into a similar position and was helping Murrue out of the cockpit, so Makoto mimicked their positions and powered it down, though she left the OS running, having set it to a short diagnostic that would let her more easily figure out how to adapt the GINN OS to it.

By the time the blonde stepped out of the Dauntless, grateful to be out of the tight confines of the cockpit, Sora and Kira were on the ground helping Murrue tend to her injury. Makoto stared at them, still wondering what the two had been doing at the warehouse. For just a second, her vision blurred and she blinked, shaking her head trying to clear it. After the GINN had left, the sharpness had faded from her vision and hearing, and she still a bit disoriented from it, chalking it up to a simple adrenaline rush.

"Sora! What the _fuck_ were you doing in that thing you _IDIOT?!_"

Makoto sighed—it was just like her first day on the colony, when she introduced herself to Kira, Sora and the girl screaming primal fury as she led a group of teens over to them in her mad charge to kill her boyfriend (or was it childhood friend? Makoto never did figure that part out).

"Misako! Ayane! Sai!" cried Sora in relief, stepping away from Murrue and Kira, which unfortunately just made him an easier target as Misako reached him and slugged him right in the face.

"Do you have any idea how fucking worried we were?!" screamed Misako. Before she could get any further though, Makoto slapped a hand over her mouth.

"Calm down, will you?" she said, rubbing her left ear with her free hand. "I think your voice could penetrate vacuum the way you were going."

Misako looked enraged for half a second, until she saw the look in Makoto's eyes: exhausted, terror and something almost predatory.

"Fine," she said after pushing away Makoto's hands. She then folded her arms. "Now would someone please explain what's going on?"

Makoto didn't reply, instead glancing over at Murrue, whose wound was now wrapped in a makeshift bandage torn from the sleeve of her uniform.

"Yeah, really, we'd like to know what's going on here," said one of the two teens that had followed Kira's friends, a Japanese boy with brown hair and eyes. Behind him, the brown-haired girl was staring at Murrue, a small look of concern in her soft blue eyes.

Murrue grunted.

"Go ahead and tell them," she said, "there's no point in trying to hide things any longer." Makoto nodded.

"Understood, Ramius-chūi," she said, the honorific catching almost everyone off-guard, even Kira and Sora who'd heard it earlier. She turned back to face the others. "I don't know how long we've got, so I'll try to make this quick; Morgenroete struck an off-the-record deal with the Atlantic Federation to develop new mobile weapons. These are three of the eight prototypes."

"By the time the Orb government found out about what Morgenroete had done," continued Makoto with a small sigh, "it was too late to really do anything about it, and I was sent up here as a governmental representative to put Morgenroete back under heel since their actions had endangered Heliopolis."

Makoto paused for a second to breathe as everyone sort of gaped at her—even Murrue looked surprised, caught off-guard by Makoto's real purpose on the colony.

"Obviously, there wasn't a lot I could do, and ZAFT found out about the prototypes, hence their attack on the colony to steal the prototypes. Realistically, Heliopolis would probably be better off if they'd gotten all eight of them, but given a choice I'd rather make it out of this alive, and Ramius-chūi over there is with the Federation."

The blonde paused again, giving everyone a quick glance.

"So, the situation is this: Heliopolis is under siege by ZAFT and they've made off with more than enough evidence to accuse Orb of violating its neutrality, so Orb will be forced to treat Heliopolis as a rogue colony and can no longer help us. There's no Alliance forces nearby except for those Eurasian pricks at Artemis, ZAFT has us outnumbered and outgunned by at least a 2-to-1 margin and has pilots with actual experience, and all we've got to defend ourselves with are these three hunks of junk without proper working operating systems and little in the way of weapons, supplies or power. The smart thing to do now is run for the nearest shelter and hope we make it safely to Orb after ZAFT is finished destroying the colony. Any questions?"

There was a pause before the Japanese boy spoke up.

"Who the hell _are _you?"

Makoto stared at him pointedly.

"Makoto Arata, quasi-reserve lieutenant in the Orb Self-Defense Force, part-time Morgenroete employee, unfortunate liaison between Morgenroete and the Orb government, and the only person who might be able to use these machines to save your sorry asses. Any _intelligent_ questions?"

Murrue sighed, and almost everyone just stared at Makoto a bit wide-eyed until Ayane spoke up.

"What do we now?"

"Well Honda-san, you, your brother, Yamato-san, Argyle-san, Miyamura-san and you two," the blonde motioned to the boy and girl whose names she hadn't heard yet, "should try and find a shelter. I'll be staying here with Ramius-chūi to try and stop ZAFT."

"Huh?" Sora blinked. "But didn't you just say…"

"The smart thing and the right thing aren't always the same," said Makoto. "In fact, they usually have nothing in common."

"Well, I can't fault you for thinking that way," said Sai, adjusting his glasses slightly. "But there might be a bit of a problem; you see, every shelter we've reached has either been full or… well, destroyed. It would take hours for us to find a shelter to use, even if we used this machines to check them all more quickly."

Makoto blinked and let out a sigh as Murrue walked over to them.

"In that case, I suggest you remain here to help us with these machines," she said. "We might still be able to contact friendly forces, and if we can't, well… at least we can try to stop ZAFT from destroying the colony. It seems exceedingly unlikely to me that they would deploy the stolen prototypes."

"That's true," said Makoto, rubbing her neck as she looked around, "and Heliopolis has a reasonably strong garrison force considering its position. There's a decent chance that most of the ZAFT forces have already been destroyed." She looked at Murrue. "But still… what now? As I said, I'll follow your lead, Ramius-chūi."

Murrue shifted just slightly, nervous about the idea of actually leading in combat. Still…

"First thing, I'd like to know who all of you are," she said.

"Miriallia Haw," said the young brunette girl.

"Tolle Koenig," added the boy, who was glaring slightly at Makoto.

"Sai Argyle."

"Ayane Honda."

"Misako Miyamura." Makoto thought she heard the redhead mutter "bitch" under her breath, but couldn't be certain.

"Sora Honda."

"Kira Yamato."

Murrue nodded as each of them introduced themselves before speaking up.

"And I'm Murrue Ramius of the Atlantic Federation." She looked around before turning to Makoto. "What's the status of the Dauntless?"

Makoto shook her head.

"Not optimal," she said. "Aside from the beam sabers, its effectively unarmed; no ammo for its weapons and I'm obviously missing the other equipment. Plus, I need to finish my work on the OS if I'm gonna fly it."

"Yes, I was curious about that," said Murrue. "If we survive this, I'll want an explanation."

"You'll get it."

Murrue nodded as she looked at the other two machines. "The Strike's power reserves are low due to the number of blows it took. Its Igelstellungs aren't loaded, and with no Striker pack, all it has are the assault knives. I'm not sure about the Adamant's power reserve, but it should have beam sabers and the beam guns. However…"

"Yeah, I know," said Makoto. Murrue let out a small sigh, thinking things over for a moment before she turned to the civilians.

"Who among you knows the layouts of the factory district?"

After a brief hesitation, Kira, Sai, Ayane and Tolle raised their hands. Murrue gave a small nod.

"Alright then; Sai, Tolle, I'd like you two to head to Warehouse 4; it should still be intact. You'll find several trailers inside. We need trailers 6 and 8-2. And please hurry."

"Got it," said Sai, turning to Tolle. "Let's go."

"Yeah, sure."

As the two ran off, Murrue focused on the others.

"Kira, you were pretty quick to reprogram the OS," she said. "Do you think you could use it in combat again?" Kira looked away.

"Yeah, probably," he said, "but…"

"I understand if you're reluctant to fight again," said Murrue, "but right now, the situation is desperate for all of us."

Kira let out a small sigh before nodding.

"I understand," he said, "I'll get to work on it."

"Thank you," said Murrue before turning to the only other person who really grasped what was going on. "Makoto, please go ahead and finish the work you wanted to on the Dauntless."

"Sure thing, Ramius-chūi."

"For now, the rest of you should just rest and hope for the best; we could use your help when the trailers get here, but…"

"Sure, just keep me out of that thing," said Sora, motioning to the Adamant. Murrue nodded in acknowledgment before walking over to the Adamant herself to try and contact friendly forces.

* * *

Heliopolis Airspace

Mu's surprise (and perhaps a small bit of relief) at the ZAFT retreat order had been undercut within seconds by the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, both from the sight of two of their prototypes evidently stolen, and the sudden realization of just who he was actually up against.

As Mu glided through space in search of his nemesis, his thoughts drifted slightly to his past encounters with the enigmatic ZAFT Commander.

The first time Mu and Rau had fought was during the Bloody Valentine, the very first battle of the war, with neither able to gain a decisive advantage, and their duel ended prematurely when Mu joined the forces deserting the battle after the Bloody Valentine, disgusted as many others by the use of a nuclear warhead on a civilian target at the start of the war.

The next time the two did battle was at the start of Operation Uroboros, when the fleet Mu was assigned to tried to intercept the ZAFT drop forces the day after the April Fool Crisis. The fight did not last long, with the Seventh Orbital Fleet withdrawing mere moments into the battle when it became obvious the ZAFT drop forces had already deployed.

After that, the two clashed several times during the Grimaldi Conflict on Luna, neither of them ever gaining a decisive victory over the other until the Battle of Endymion, where Rau effortlessly defeated Mu, who was exhausted, low on ammo, and had lost two of his four gunbarrels during the course of the battle leading up their clash.

That had been the last the two had fought, despite both being involved in the month-long L4 Conflict. This would be the first encounter between the Crucible of Yggdrasil and the Hawk of Endymion since the latter had earned his reputation on the Grimaldi Front.

Mu was drawn out of his contemplation when his gut starting screaming at him, jerking his machine upwards as a burst of seventy-six millimeter bullets tore through the space he had just occupied.

"Le Creuset," he growled in his throat. "I should've known you'd be the one to attack a neutral colony like this."

In the CGUE, Rau grit his teeth as Mu evaded his attack and deployed his gunbarrels for a counterattack—even a pilot as skilled as Rau had difficulty with those things and he only knew of one pilot who'd taken out more than a single Moebius Zero in one go.

"You're always getting in my way Mu," snapped Rau, though of course his foe wouldn't hear the words. Rau's expression suddenly shifted into a smirk. "Though I imagine you'd probably say the same about me."

At that instant, Rau shifted and flew into Heliopolis, knowing that Mu would pursue him even though the colony interior would be an extremely disadvantageous place to try and fight a mobile suit.

"That's right Mu," murmured Rau as he saw the mobile armor following him on radar. "That's right… pursue me into the jaws of death."

* * *

Morgenroete Heliopolis Shipyard

Mu wasn't the only one seething at that particular moment.

Despite the best efforts of the ZAFT infiltrators, not only had the ship they'd been trying to destroy survived effectively undamaged, but so had a handful of the Earth Forces soldiers, all thanks more or less to the Orb practice of over engineering everything they could.

Ensign Natarle Badgiruel, a woman with extremely dark purple eyes, severe features, strictly military regulation length black hair and an admirable figure as long as no one mentioned it to her, was the highest-ranking survivor in the shipyard, and was in fact the only commissioned officer.

The other survivors were Arnold Neumann, a senior NCO trained as a reserve pilot, Kojiro Murdoch, the lieutenant of the deceased chief mechanic, a trio of security guards and five junior mechanics.

For as lucky as they could be considered given the circumstances, it did not stop Natarle from being furious at their situation, though she managed to hide it well. Only herself and Arnold were remotely qualified for bridge operations, but even speaking optimistically she'd need at least three people to get the prototype warship out of the busted shipyard hangar.

So she'd recruited the person most likely to be able to do something, namely Murdoch.

"Well, on the bright side, they've included some pretty straightforward instructions," said Murdoch, sitting at the operations station behind the captain's seat. He glanced down towards the CIC. "Seems a bit odd, doesn't it?"

"It does," admitted Natarle, having taken control of the entire CIC at the fire control station, "but now isn't the time to be worrying about it."

"Maybe those rumors about Orb's fortress policy are true," suggested Arnold, "because the more I look this over, the more I begin to think this ship was designed to be capable of running with only three people."

"Good thing a trained monkey could do this then," said Murdoch, "because otherwise you wouldn't even have that much to work with." He input a few commands. "There we go, ship's drawing power from the shipyard facilities. Looks like some of them were damaged in the attack though, so it's still gonna take awhile to bring it up to operational status."

"It's still better than nothing," admitted Natarle with a sigh. "Now we just wait…"

* * *

Heliopolis Interior

Without any ZAFT attacks disturbing them, it hadn't taken long for Kira and Makoto to finish the necessary modifications, after which Kira had climbed out of the Strike to rest, joined a moment later by Murrue after she'd failed to raise any friendly forces through the jamming that was still in effect. Makoto, on the other hand, had remained in the Dauntless, fine-tuning her OS in order to avoid any incidents like the earlier one with the beam saber.

Down in the Orb Mainland, there was a reserve draft requirement in place, primarily for the various Noble Houses, but it also applied to a percentage of the average population. The reason for this was that many in the Orb government were wary of China, the dominant power in the Republic of East Asia. The Chinese had never really forgiven being forcibly pacified by Japan during the early years of the Reconstruction War when Japan was one of the three major nations trying to bring an end to the conflict before all hell broke loose. They didn't succeed, which had led into the foundation of Orb by survivors of the Japanese government and Imperial Family.

The paranoia that East Asia would invade sooner or later had seen Orb turned into a fortress nation capable of fighting off virtually any assault and able to defend itself from any venue of attack. To make it work, though, they needed soldiers, and many of them were reserve forces like Makoto, given the minimum training requirements, then allowed to go back to their lives—at least, outside of coming back every few months for more training to keep them sharp and make them as good as possible.

For her own part, Makoto had received training as a mobile suit pilot, and it was that training that allowed her to handle the Dauntless well once she'd installed an OS that at least _looked_ like it worked. Of course, that wasn't perfect either—the GINN was a significantly less fluid machine than the new prototypes were, and while the OS was generally supposed to handle concerns of weapon mass, the GINN weapons were significantly heavier than those of the Dauntless, and the GINN OS tried to treat them as such due to compatibility issues.

It wasn't perfect—it'd take her awhile to get it there—but Makoto was now reasonably confident that she wouldn't face any of the issues fighting that she had earlier.

Which was just as well—Makoto glanced at one of her monitors and saw two trailers approaching them, prompting her to step out of the cockpit.

"Ramius-chūi, Yamato-san, they're here with the trailers."

* * *

Heliopolis Central Shaft

Mu knew why Rau had dragged the battle into the Heliopolis interior, but that didn't stop him from becoming frustrated and angry over it.

While the Moebius Zero could maneuver through the "buildings" of the interior shaft just as well as the CGUE, Rau didn't have any kind of restrictions in how he aimed, whereas Mu needed to shift the Zero's entire body to face his opponent in order to open fire.

Then, just to make things worse, Mu detected another mobile suit in the shaft and bit out a curse.

"_Commander Le Creuset,_" came a voice over the CGUE's radio—a voice Rau had never expected to hear again, and left even him blinking in surprise behind his mask.

"Rusty, is that you?" questioned Rau.

"_Yeah, I managed to escape,_" said Rusty, "_but Shawn and Miguel were beaten; Shawn's dead and I've got Miguel unconscious in here. I should get him back to the ship, unless you need me here…?_"

With a faint, surprised smirk, Rau shook his head.

"No Rusty, see to it that Miguel gets medical treatment," he said, "I'll deal with the Hawk, then take a look at those mobile suits myself. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

"_Yes sir,_" replied Rusty as the GINN pulled past the battling CGUE and Zero and headed for the exit.

"Alright then Mu, I think it's time I ended this," said Rau, preparing to start his assault on the Zero's gunbarrels. "That way I can take a closer look at these remarkable mobile weapons your people seem to have devised."

* * *

Meanwhile

While Sai and Kira went to work mounting the Striker pack under Murrue's guidance, Makoto took a moment to sit down on a bench and rest herself.

Today had been decidedly unpleasant for the blonde, having found herself forced to kill three people just to survive, and preparing to kill more in the defense of a nearly empty colony.

She really wished she could be back home with her friends—hanging out on beaches or celebrating Makoto's latest concert.

Anything would've been better than where she was now.

Suddenly, Miriallia sat down next to her, surprising Makoto slightly.

"How are you feeling?" the brunette asked. Makoto shrugged.

"Not great," she said, "but not too bad all things considered. Either way, sorry you got caught up in this, Haw-san."

"It's not your fault," said Mir. She glanced at the Dauntless. "You know, it's funny, but in a way, I admire you and that Kira kid… I don't think I could muster up the courage to fly those even if I were able to pull it off."

Makoto shook her head.

"I have training as an Orb reserve pilot," she said, "so it's really not that bad for me. It's Yamato-san who's really admirable…"

A shadow suddenly fell over the two, who glanced up to see Tolle standing there, looking pretty grouchy, not that anyone could blame him.

"So why aren't you getting the equipment off the other trailer?" he asked Makoto with a slight edge in his voice. The blonde shrugged slightly.

"Mostly because the equipment is of a very different nature from the X105's," she said, "so it won't take as long to have it ready if we're attacked." Makoto hesitated briefly before letting out a small sigh and giving Tolle an apologetic look. "I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier, Koenig-san. I'm just really on edge over all of this."

Tolle looked surprised at that and his body posture lost some of the anger he'd been carrying.

"Ah, um… yeah, that's fine," said Tolle, seeming almost sheepish suddenly. "I guess all of us probably are, so…"

"When this is all over, we should try meeting up," suggested Mir with a smile. "I'd really like to get to know you better Makoto, and the others too of course."

Makoto's lips were starting to form into a smile… and then she suddenly saw Sora stumble an instant before the sound of an explosion reached their ears, prompting everyone to look up at the central shaft.

To Makoto and Murrue, it was obviously the explosion had come from inside the shaft, so they were only somewhat surprised when a CGUE burst out of the explosion followed by a Moebius Zero with no gunbarrels, and Makoto immediately bolted towards the Dauntless.

"Hurry up and mount the equipment!" shouted Murrue to Kira and Sai. Even as the two continued to work and Makoto hopped into the cockpit of the Dauntless, the CGUE above them approached, only to suddenly jerk away with the Zero in pursuit.

Makoto brought the Dauntless out of standby mode and activated the Phase Shift armor before grabbing the sword and shield from the trailer, while Kira finished mounting the Launcher Striker and activated his own PS armor just in time for the CGUE to slice off the barrel of the Zero's linear gun.

Before Kira, Makoto or Rau had a chance to act against one another, though, another explosion suddenly rocked the colony, loud enough that Murrue and the civilians on the ground were forced to cover their ears as the fire erupted from one end of the colony… and a massive white warship emerged into the colony.

* * *

**Author's Notes: I really haven't offered up a huge amount of difference from canon just yet. I've cut down on the _Archangel_ crew _significantly_, removed Kuzzey, and turned Mir and Tolle into strangers to Kira (also, they're not dating). But that's about it as real changes go...  
**

**Oh, alright, so I saved Rusty and Miguel's GINN. I have special plans for Rusty, so I ask everyone to look forward to him, as I've honestly had way too much fun with my plans for him. In fact, my plans in general have been more thoroughly figured compared to when I posted the first chapter, though I doubt that will help me progress past these early chapters any.**

**Also, I know Kira hasn't gotten much spotlight this chapter, but circumstances mostly set it up for Makoto to take center stage (being the actual reserve soldier who can pilot instead of a civilian who'd rather be uninvolved), especially since Kira's actions haven't shifted from canon too much. I'm honestly not sure how things will actually come across as I progress with this story, but I do want to at least try and keep Kira and Makoto more balanced in terms of story-presence, though I admit that, since Kira's story is known to the whole freaking fandom at this point, Makoto's story is really going to seem like it's taking over. Readers, please be aware of how that fact can alter your perceptions of a story and character, but don't hold back if Makoto's showing serious signs of Sue-ness, I really don't want a repeat of the Old Divinity Saga. :P**

**Please read and review, even if there's not a lot _too_ review at the moment.**

**Hopefully, I'll see you all soon, either with another update for _Gundam Divinity_ or with one for _The White Queen_.**

**Ja ne!**


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